• What is the ethical question?

• What are the relevant facts necessary to think carefully about it?

• Who or what could be affected by the way the question gets resolved?

• What are the relevant ethical considerations?
  • Respect for persons
  • Maximize benefits while minimizing harms
  • Justice or fairness

• Advancements in biotechnology and medicine have created new ethical issues never before faced by humanity
  • YOU will face ethical questions that your parents never had to contend with

• Current themes in bioethics:
  • Human reproduction
  • Shaping human beings
  • Beginning and end of life
  • Health and society
  • Food, farming and the environment
  • Crime and security
  • Research ethics
  • Vaccine distribution
    

Just because humans CAN do something, SHOULD we?

• The ability to perform sophisticated genetic tests or sequence an entire genome is revolutionizing diagnosis of disease
  • increasing tests are non-invasive

• Prenatal tests can diagnose potentially fatal diseases

• Many diseases with adult onset have gene alterations that are not causative but associated with it
  • e.g. Alzheimer’s and APOE

• Who should be allowed to see this information?
  • Insurance companies?

• Is it better not to know?
  • Many individuals experience high levels of stress and anxiety after test results

• Should a fetus with a fatal disease be terminated
  • Down-syndrome vs autism vs IQ
  • What about false-positives?

• What would be the consequence of mass genetic screening?
  • Stigmatization
  • Eugenics concerns

• CRISPR-Cas9 has now made gene editing a reality in nearly any type of cell
  • including a human embryo

• Some diseases can be corrected (e.g. sickle cell)
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ8Ola_C5po&t=7s

• Chinese scientist used CRISPR on human embryos to edit the receptor that HIV uses to gain entry

• Crops are being modified to withstand various ecological challenges
  • genetically engineering C4 photosynthesis

• Alterations may increase the likelihood of one disease while protecting you from others

• Possibility of mistakes exists
  • Risks further damage to health
  • Long-term effects?

• Opens door for cosmetic changes in humans

• Consequences for the natural world
  • Should we alter species DNA to save biodiversity?

• Stem cells can be obtained from an embryo or induced from somatic cells

• Great promise for disease-specific cell lines and regenerative medicine products

• Stem cells are stored in biobanks to provide blood transplantation resources

• Creation of embryos specifically for research purposes
  • and destruction

• Status of organoids generated

• Use of animal models and potential for xenografts

• Economic interference: the potential to overpromise and overexpect

• Identity concerns after patient donations of stem cells

• Cloning of humans is almost certainly possible at this point
  • Human embryos cloned: 2001
  • Adult human cells transformed into embryonic cells: 2007
  • Genetic material from skin cells grown into embryo: 2011

• There are potential uses for regenerative medicine
  • cloned embryos a source for stem cells

• Would a clone be the same person?
  • Phenotype versus genotype
  • How to distinguish a clone from the original?

• Psychological harm to a human clone:
  • Should a clone have the same rights?
  • Societal issues

• Low success rate of cloning—many abort late term

• Cloned organisms may develop health problems

• Negative consequences of invasive species are far-reaching
  • 42% of threatened/endangered species are at risk
  • Commercial, agricultural, and recreational activities depend on healthy native ecosystems

• Invasive species’ are the villains of the wildlife conservation world.

• Management of invasive species is expensive
  • U.S. loses $13 billion annually in crops from invasive insects
  • Eurasian watermilfoil (aquatic plant) reduced Vermont lakefront property ~16%

• Is the demonisation of ‘invasives’ morally wrong?
  • Management usually results in the killing of the species
  • Narrative oversimplifies complex biological processes

• Biocontrol often fails
  • Is it ethical to introduce a predator into a system?

• Are the terms ‘invasive’, ‘non-native’ and ‘foreign’ morally appropriate?
  • Consider the human perspective
  • Many non-native species have little impact

• War rhetoric often used to describe the behaviors of invasive species
  • Insects, molluscs, plants, etc. are not intent on destruction

• Healthcare and life expectancy in underdeveloped countries lags far behind first world countries

• Sub-saharan African countries: 20-25 years lower

• Do richer countries have an obligation to act?

• Socio-economic background a major factor in the US

• Moral responsibility to minimize suffering
  • disease burden impart due to life-sytle choice

• What is the relationship between health ethics and human rights?
  • Governments obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights
  • Protecting community health may require limiting the liberty of people
  • Limited resource distribution

• Goes beyond a health issue
  • Affects security and economics